1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to image forming apparatuses, image forming methods, image forming systems, and recording media.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a pathological diagnosis, tissue is excised from an internal organ or a tumor and examined to make a definite diagnosis of disease or to determine the spread of a lesion. The excised tissue section is then sliced to a thickness of several microns so that a tissue slice can be observed under a microscope, and a pathology slide (specimen) is created by placing the tissue slice between glass plates. A pathological diagnosis is made to determine whether the cancer is benign or malignant, and thus the number of specimens created per day for pathological diagnoses at a hospital is as high as several hundred. Unlike radiographic images or the like, pathological specimens cannot be saved in the form of electronic data. Therefore, it is typical to preserve the specimens so that the created specimens can be examined at a later time.
Conventionally, microscopes are used to observe microstructures, such as biological tissue. A microscope magnifies light that has passed through a subject or light reflected by a subject through a lens. An examiner directly observes an image formed by the magnified light. If a digital microscope that captures a microscopy image with a camera and displays the image on a display is used, multiple people can observe the image at the same time or observe the image at remote locations. The camera is disposed at a focal point of the microscope and captures the image that has been magnified by a lens of the microscope.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 4-316478 discloses a technique for observing a microstructure through a contact image sensing (CIS) method. In the CIS method, a subject is placed directly on an image sensor, and an image of the subject is captured. The image is not magnified by a lens, and thus the pixel size of the image sensor determines the resolution. In other words, the smaller pixel size enables a more detailed image of a microstructure to be captured.
As stated above, when an image is captured by using a conventional CIS method, a resolution that exceeds the resolution determined by the pixel size of the image sensor cannot be achieved.